


Breathe

by Severina



Category: Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Genre: Community: sexy_right
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-05
Updated: 2011-09-05
Packaged: 2017-10-23 10:59:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/249547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Sure talk a lot for someone who can't breathe," McClane drawls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> Written for LJ's sexy_right community, for the Fic Tac Toe challenge. My prompt was "asthma".

The downed helicopter is still blazing fiercely near the mouth of the tunnel, and Matt swears he can feel the heat from it crisping the hairs at the nape of his neck even at a hundred yards.

He does his best to remember that the pilot is very likely a crispy critter right now, char-broiled for sure, and is not actually stalking through the maze of cars behind them with a submachine gun or a rocket launcher aimed at the big _I am the programmer you were hired to kill_ target on his back. He forces himself not to look back; swipes the hair out of his eyes and focuses on McClane instead.

Matt can barely put one foot in front of the other, but he watches as McClane herds half a dozen pale, shocked faces toward the west wall, stops to help someone manoeuvre around the back of a crushed sub-compact, exchanges a word with a rabbity little guy and then squeezes the shoulder of a big guy in flannel. And seriously, seriously, the dude just threw a car at a _helicopter_ and then threw _himself_ out of that same car and he's bruised and battered and cut and—

"Jeeesus, kid," McClane yells over his shoulder. "Keep up!"

Seriously.

"Okay," Matt huffs out, "McClane? McClane! It's called asthma, all right? And my inhaler? You know, that little device that helps me breathe during crisis situations, like when my mother brings home a dog for the _third_ time even though I'm allergic, or during a snowstorm, or, you know, when I get a little anxious because people are trying to KILL ME? That's at home, McClane, except… not, because home is a pile of ash and rubble right now, and I don't _know_ where my inhaler is, and I can't. Fucking. Breathe! I just need two seconds, man. Just gimme two seconds to—"

"Sure talk a lot for someone who can't breathe," McClane drawls.

Matt doesn't bother to respond, just lurches to where McClane is leaning casually against one of the east pillars and drops his palms to his thighs, draws in a great gasp of breath. Then another. When it actually feels like his heart is no longer going to explode out of his chest like something from the _Alien_ franchise, he looks up at McClane through his bangs. "Thanks, man. Jesus, what are you, robocop?"

McClane scans the length of his body with a slight scowl, shrugs and spreads his hands. "Just a regular cop, kid."

Matt's seen regular cops. Matt's been _arrested_ by regular cops, and not a single one of them ever did the things he's seen McClane do, or talked the way McClane talks. Or looked the way McClane looks, with the dome starting to stubble as the day wears on and the steely-eyed stare and the big hands that seem like they'd be coarse and rough but are really sort of super gentle and make a person think that he'd do pretty much anything to keep those hands on him all the fucking time.

Matt shifts, stands up, clears his throat and tries to remember what the hell they were talking about.

Regular cops. Right.

"Hah, right," he says. "Lemme tell you something, McClane. Most cops don't make fire extinguishers explode to get the bad guy, or run over fire hydrants with their cars, or… or… jump out of moving vehicles! Most cops sit in parking lots and eat doughnuts and—"

"Twinkies."

Matt blinks. "What?"

"Some cops eat twinkies," John says.

The scrapes on McClane's head don't look too bad, but Matt starts to wonder about concussion nonetheless. "Sure, okay," he says warily. "Twinkies. Whatever. My point is, McClane, that you are not a regular _anything_. And unless you have titanium alloy under all that skin, you can't put your body through something like that without—"

"I'm fine, kid," McClane says.

He pushes away from the wall, winces with the effort and Matt has to roll his eyes. "Yeah," Matt says. "You're _fine_."

"And so are you," McClane continues relentlessly. "C'mon. We gotta get outta here, get some help."

"I'm not fine, McClane. You're not fine. Nobody's FINE!"

"You _look_ fine," McClane smirks as he takes off down the tunnel, leaving Matt frozen in his tracks.

His throat is suddenly parched and his stomach is doing weird flip-floppy things and his chest is tight and everything is sort of blurry, and okay, that could totally be because he's been on the run for hours and he hasn't eaten and people keep trying to shoot him. But then he clenches his fist, leans his forehead against the pillar that McClane just vacated and he swears he can still feel McClane's body heat leeching from the stone and… and if he didn't know better, he'd say that McClane just _flirted_ with him.

"C'mon, kid!" John calls from further up the tunnel. "Get your ass over here!"

Matt closes his eyes, clutches at the pillar and tries to remember how to breathe. He's been shot at multiple times, knocked around in a car accident, involved in a high speed chase with a fucking helicopter, and almost been crushed by a car. But if John McClane just flirted with him, the day just got officially weird. And wild. And kind of stupidly amazing.

Now he really needs his inhaler.


End file.
